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The Merchant of Venice: Act 3 Scene 2

Scene II Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house.

[Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and

Attendants]

PORTIA

I pray you, tarry: pause a day or two

Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,

I lose your company: therefore forbear awhile.

There's something tells me, but it is not love,

I would not lose you; and you know yourself,

Hate counsels not in such a quality.

But lest you should not understand me well,--

And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,--

I would detain you here some month or two

Before you venture for me. I could teach you

How to choose right, but I am then forsworn;

So will I never be: so may you miss me;

But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,

That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,

They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;

One half of me is yours, the other half yours,

Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,

And so all yours. O, these naughty times

Put bars between the owners and their rights!

And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,

Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.

I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time,

To eke it and to draw it out in length,

To stay you from election.

BASSANIO

Let me choose

For as I am, I live upon the rack.

PORTIA

Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess

What treason there is mingled with your love.

BASSANIO

None but that ugly treason of mistrust,

Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love:

There may as well be amity and life

'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

PORTIA

Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak anything.

BASSANIO

Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.

PORTIA

Well then, confess and live.

BASSANIO

'Confess' and 'love'

Had been the very sum of my confession:

O happy torment, when my torturer

Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

PORTIA

Away, then! I am lock'd in one of them:

If you do love me, you will find me out.

Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;

Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

Fading in music: that the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream

And watery death-bed for him. He may win;

And what is music then? Then music is

Even as the flourish when true subjects bow

To a new-crowned monarch: such it is

As are those dulcet sounds in break of day

That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,

And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,

With no less presence, but with much more love,

Than young Alcides, when he did redeem

The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy

To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice

The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,

With bleared visages, come forth to view

The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!

Live thou, I live: with much, much more dismay

I view the fight than thou that makest the fray.

[Music, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself]

SONG.

Tell me where is fancy bred,

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.

It is engender'd in the eyes,

With gazing fed; and fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy's knell

I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.

ALL

Ding, dong, bell.

BASSANIO

So may the outward shows be least themselves:

The world is still deceived with ornament.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil? In religion,

What damned error, but some sober brow

Will bless it and approve it with a text,

Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false

As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins

The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;

Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk;

And these assume but valour's excrement

To render them redoubted! Look on beauty,

And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;

Which therein works a miracle in nature,

Making them lightest that wear most of it:

So are those crisped snaky golden locks

Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,

Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf

Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on

To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,

Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge

'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead,

Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught,

Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence;

And here choose I; joy be the consequence!

PORTIA

[Aside] How all the other passions fleet to air,

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,

And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love,

Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,

In measure rein thy joy; scant this excess.

I feel too much thy blessing: make it less,

For fear I surfeit.

BASSANIO

What find I here?

[Opening the leaden casket]

Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god

Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?

Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,

Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,

Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar

Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs

The painter plays the spider and hath woven

A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,

Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,--

How could he see to do them? having made one,

Methinks it should have power to steal both his

And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far

The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow

In underprizing it, so far this shadow

Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,

The continent and summary of my fortune.

[Reads]

You that choose not by the view,

Chance as fair and choose as true!

Since this fortune falls to you,

Be content and seek no new,

If you be well pleased with this

And hold your fortune for your bliss,

Turn you where your lady is

And claim her with a loving kiss.

A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;

I come by note, to give and to receive.

Like one of two contending in a prize,

That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,

Hearing applause and universal shout,

Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt

Whether these pearls of praise be his or no;

So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so;

As doubtful whether what I see be true,

Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.

PORTIA

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,

Such as I am: though for myself alone

I would not be ambitious in my wish,

To wish myself much better; yet, for you

I would be trebled twenty times myself;

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;

That only to stand high in your account,

I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,

Exceed account; but the full sum of me

Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,

Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;

Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn; happier than this,

She is not bred so dull but she can learn;

Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit

Commits itself to yours to be directed,

As from her lord, her governor, her king.

Myself and what is mine to you and yours

Is now converted: but now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now,

This house, these servants and this same myself

Are yours, my lord: I give them with this ring;

Which when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

BASSANIO

Madam, you have bereft me of all words,

Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;

And there is such confusion in my powers,

As after some oration fairly spoke

By a beloved prince, there doth appear

Among the buzzing pleased multitude;

Where every something, being blent together,

Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy,

Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring

Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence:

O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!

NERISSA

My lord and lady, it is now our time,

That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,

To cry, good joy: good joy, my lord and lady!

GRATIANO

My lord Bassanio and my gentle lady,

I wish you all the joy that you can wish;

For I am sure you can wish none from me:

And when your honours mean to solemnize

The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you,

Even at that time I may be married too.

BASSANIO

With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.

GRATIANO

I thank your lordship, you have got me one.

My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:

You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;

You loved, I loved for intermission.

No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.

Your fortune stood upon the casket there,

And so did mine too, as the matter falls;

For wooing here until I sweat again,

And sweating until my very roof was dry

With oaths of love, at last, if promise last,

I got a promise of this fair one here

To have her love, provided that your fortune

Achieved her mistress.

PORTIA

Is this true, Nerissa?

NERISSA

Madam, it is, so you stand pleased withal.

BASSANIO

And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?

GRATIANO

Yes, faith, my lord.

BASSANIO

Our feast shall be much honour'd in your marriage.

GRATIANO

We'll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.

NERISSA

What, and stake down?

GRATIANO

No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down.

But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel? What,

and my old Venetian friend Salerio?

[Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a Messenger

from Venice]

BASSANIO

Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither;

If that the youth of my new interest here

Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,

I bid my very friends and countrymen,

Sweet Portia, welcome.

PORTIA

So do I, my lord:

They are entirely welcome.

LORENZO

I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,

My purpose was not to have seen you here;

But meeting with Salerio by the way,

He did entreat me, past all saying nay,

To come with him along.

SALERIO

I did, my lord;

And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio

Commends him to you.

[Gives Bassanio a letter]

BASSANIO

Ere I ope his letter,

I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth.

SALERIO

Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;

Nor well, unless in mind: his letter there

Will show you his estate.

GRATIANO

Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome.

Your hand, Salerio: what's the news from Venice?

How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?

I know he will be glad of our success;

We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

SALERIO

I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.

PORTIA

There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper,

That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:

Some dear friend dead; else nothing in the world

Could turn so much the constitution

Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!

With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,

And I must freely have the half of anything

That this same paper brings you.

BASSANIO

O sweet Portia,

Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words

That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,

When I did first impart my love to you,

I freely told you, all the wealth I had

Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman;

And then I told you true: and yet, dear lady,

Rating myself at nothing, you shall see

How much I was a braggart. When I told you

My state was nothing, I should then have told you

That I was worse than nothing; for, indeed,

I have engaged myself to a dear friend,

Engaged my friend to his mere enemy,

To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady;

The paper as the body of my friend,

And every word in it a gaping wound,

Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?

Have all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?

From Tripolis, from Mexico and England,

From Lisbon, Barbary and India?

And not one vessel 'scape the dreadful touch

Of merchant-marring rocks?

SALERIO

Not one, my lord.

Besides, it should appear, that if he had

The present money to discharge the Jew,

He would not take it. Never did I know

A creature, that did bear the shape of man,

So keen and greedy to confound a man:

He plies the duke at morning and at night,

And doth impeach the freedom of the state,

If they deny him justice: twenty merchants,

The duke himself, and the magnificoes

Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;

But none can drive him from the envious plea

Of forfeiture, of justice and his bond.

JESSICA

When I was with him I have heard him swear

To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,

That he would rather have Antonio's flesh

Than twenty times the value of the sum

That he did owe him: and I know, my lord,

If law, authority and power deny not,

It will go hard with poor Antonio.

PORTIA

Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?

BASSANIO

The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,

The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit

In doing courtesies, and one in whom

The ancient Roman honour more appears

Than any that draws breath in Italy.

PORTIA

What sum owes he the Jew?

BASSANIO

For me three thousand ducats.

PORTIA

What, no more?

Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;

Double six thousand, and then treble that,

Before a friend of this description

Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.

First go with me to church and call me wife,

And then away to Venice to your friend;

For never shall you lie by Portia's side

With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold

To pay the petty debt twenty times over:

When it is paid, bring your true friend along.

My maid Nerissa and myself meantime

Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!

For you shall hence upon your wedding-day:

Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer:

Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.

But let me hear the letter of your friend.

BASSANIO

[Reads] Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all

miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is

very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since

in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all

debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but

see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your

pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come,

let not my letter.

PORTIA

O love, dispatch all business, and be gone!

BASSANIO

Since I have your good leave to go away,

I will make haste: but, till I come again,

No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,

No rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.

[Exeunt]